To think my husband’s fathers wife should of involved him in his fathers funeral?

[Thatsnotappropriate]

I had to post as I’m still so flabbergasted by this experience, I had to check if I’m overreacting or not.

My dh dad, my father-in-law passed recently. Dh is his only child. He remarried after divorcing dh mum. Years ago, we all got on fairly well. Then fil sadly had a stroke, and had to go into a care home. From there the relationship between new wife and dh was a little strained. She kept pushing for dh mother’s home who she owned with fil to be sold. Dh has court of protection rights for his mother, as she sadly had a stroke too. It was all a bit.. icky. But then fil died, so we obviously pushed all that to the side.

New wife text dh once to say his dad had died. Then a second time to give location of funeral. That was it. My dh called her - ignored. Then weirdly - not one member of his side of the family contacted him with condolences. Which was really strange.

The funeral was at a crematorium. Which was a little odd, as fil was a devout catholic, but whatever, may of changed his mind. So we turn up to the crematorium. We discussed it before and assumed there must not be ‘family’ cars and pole bearers, as he would have been contacted.

You can imagine our shock when the hearse arrives followed by 3 cars. New wife, uncles, sisters brothers cousins all in there. But not his only child.

None of the family meet our eyes, inc new wife. We go into the crem, where the front rows are ‘reserved’, for everyone but dh. Then the coffin is brought in. By uncles and male cousins. So dh was robbed of the opportunity to carry his dad.

After the service, dh understandably doesn’t want to go to pub with everyone afterwards.

I say I understand, but say that we should
Let the family know.

So I approach dh’s uncle, brother of fil. Obviously, he has lost his brother so I don’t want to kick up a fuss. I just say quietly we were leaving, as dh was understandably a little upset about not being involved. He snaps that “well, maybe he should have got involved earlier” I ask him how is that possible when new wife ignores his calls?” He snaps “well that’s not a conversation for today” and I agree and said I just wanted to let the family know we were going” he mutters something and turns his back on me.

The whole experience was absolutely baffling. I can only assume new wife has said something about us, and it must of been something awful, as why would all of them think it’s acceptable to leave fil son out in the cold.

Aibu?

As the second wife has been with the FIL for many years, and the first wife remained in the marital home this preventing FIL from accessing his share, maybe the FIL and 2nd wife lived in her house, funded by her, for those years.

Agreed, especially if it was agreed that the funds were going directly to care home fees, it would’ve bypassed her entirely and the care homes would be chasing for their payments.

The same happened to my mother when her father died. She and new wife never spoke again and that decision was enforced on all members of her family (not that it was a difficult decision to make).

Oh that's awful. I've always said if DH and I ever divorce or he dies before me, I will never ever remarry. Your poor husband.

how long had they been married? Although you say New Wife, there are also suggestions that they have been married for a significant period of time.

@Thatsnotappropriate i think. This is step families. My dad was married to my step mother for 20yesrs I had a good relationship with her or so I thought. He got dementia he ended up in care she sold the house waltzed off to another town and never spoke to me this day. All over money. So I’m not surprised in the slightest your story. My step mother also controlled all the funeral and didn’t involve me at all.

I’m not a lawyer, but at a guess even if the proceeds were designated for care costs/to go 100% to ex MIL, as a co-owner on the deeds, FIL would have to consent to the sale and ‘new’ MIL has POA for FIL so was able to block it that way?

Fil is dead so the entire property has reverted to its co owner.

Surely the proceeds from the sale of the house would go towards both sets of respective care home fees? Then the rest would surely be split between your fil wife and your OH. The wife wouldn’t get a say on whether the house was sold if the local authority are owed money.
Terrible behaviour from fil wife, but your DH should have been more enquiring and proactive when lines of communication went quiet. He needs to speak to other family members to determine what’s been said

Apologies,I may have misinterpreted the OPs post, but the way I read it the pressure to sell the house happened whilst FIL was still alive and in the care home, not after?

The OP has been a bit light on the details and timings, but she did say in her follow up post that "the house ... was paid off, by both of them, and mil was living there before her stroke. The agreement was that they would sell the home and split it, and as they were both in care homes, both of the respective care homes and the new wife were pushing for a sale. It did sell.
Then new wife discovered that all proceeds would go to dh’s mum, rather than her and pulled the sale."

So the house was empty, with both owners in nursing homes. It was agreed (by whom?) that it would be sold and the proceeds divided between the owners to pay for their care home fees. This makes sense, and it's also very likely that the second wife is acting as POA for her husband, and so it would also make sense for her to block the sale of the house if the previous agreement to split the proceeds wasn't being adhered to. She would be acting in her husband's best interests and that would include taking care of his financial affairs, particularly as his stay in the nursing home relied on the sale of the house.

The OP doesn't say whether this happened before or after the FIL's death, but my reading is that the house sale issue was before he died.

It's horrible it truly is and am sorry for your hubby.
My dad hooked up with a lady and dad would've been hubby number 3. Hubby number 2's children were not even informed of the funeral, she didn't tell them. She also didn't honour his wishes and the kids had nothing left to them.

Some people in this world are just really shitty and am sorry this happened to you guys.

Pleeeeeease for the love of all that’s holy, can people stop saying “hubby” it’s so bloody cringe 😬🥴

God, yes.

OP, I'm sorry you're going through this.

No they won't. Not unless there's care debt. And even then, they probably won't.

My parent died with massive care debt and half of a property held with a joint tenant. The LA didn't come after the property. They hadn't put a charge on it, so it would have involved taking the person who now owned it in full, to court. Not worth their time and cost.

This really surprises me given how many people are so concerned about houses being forced to sale to cover care costs.

If people can just leave their house in a will to someone and the LA won’t pursue that why don’t more people do this?

I don’t think there is a single reason or excuse to exclude the child of a dead parent from at the absolute minimum a phone call (even if following up a text) about the death and another direct communication about the funeral. None at all, however poor the relationship had become. I would call that a pretty poor minimum as well - they should be involved in the planning.

I say this as a widow, and also now engaged to a man with adult children.

Im very sorry for your Dh, it’s not ok. I wonder if he would think about making a place of his own to remember his dad, like a bench plaque or similar.

They can't leave it to someone in their will and avoid paying care debt. I'm referring to properties that were already jointly owned as joint tenants before one of the tenants needed care and then died. In that case it's not 'left' to the other owner. The moment that the person died, the property reverts to the joint tenant by survivorship, and doesn't form part of the estate when it comes to the will.

As soon as it's likely that you'll need care, buying a house as joint tenants would be seen as deprivation of assets. And if you leave a property in your will, and your care debt can't be met with liquid assets in the estate, the property would need to be sold and the beneficiary would only inherit the residuary cash after the bill had been paid.

The POA ceases the moment the person dies. If new MIL was to have signed the house sale papers on FIL's behalf and he died before the sale went through, she would not have the authority to sell the house. As others have said, if that is the case and DH's is still alive, the house is entirely hers.

In this instance there is care home debt. Mil is in a care home which is why the house was being sold.

The house does not have to be sold. It's FIL's ex wife's home and if she doesn't wish to sell (or her POAs don't) the council will organise deferred payment with the debt paid when she dies. I know this because it's the exact position that my mum was in, and since her death I've been dealing with the council regarding the deferred payment debt.

No-one can force the house to be sold. It can be rented to help pay the bill.
The council can put a charge on the property though, to ensure that they get their money in the end.